SAUDI ARABIA’S sovereign wealth fund officially pulled the plug on future funding for LIV Golf, leaving the rival league to find a new path without the largesse that helped it launch four years ago as a threat to the golf establishment.
Staff and players have been aware for the last two weeks the Public Investment Fund was only going to support LIV Golf through the end of this year. LIV responded with a new board and a plan to diversify into an investment model with hopes of finding long-term partners.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the PIF governor who was behind the creation of LIV Golf, is no longer listed as chairman of LIV Golf amid reports he has resigned from that role.
“PIF has made the decision to fund LIV Golf only for the remainder of the 2026 season,” PIF said in a statement. “The substantial investment required by LIV Golf over a longer term is no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF’s investment strategy.”
The newsletter “Money in Sports” reported earlier this year LIV Golf has spent $5.3 billion since it began in 2022, a figure likely to exceed $6 billion by the end of the year. LIV Golf spent about $1 billion in luring top names away from the PGA Tour when it launched — Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, among them.
Prize money was increased this year to $30 million at each event.
PIF two weeks ago revealed a new five-year investment strategy geared toward “sustained value creation, with a strengthened focus on maximizing impact, raising the efficiency of investments, and applying the highest standards of governance, transparency and institutional excellence.”
